How to Grow Sweet Potato Successfully -- It's Super EASY! 

Check out my updated videos on growing SWEET POTATOES! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DDct9rvUjms.html

For those that don't know you can eat sweet potato leaves, they are comparable to spinach and many people grow them just for the leaves and not the SP to use in salads or as wraps like lettuce or anywhere you would use spinach.

A few weeks ago I bought a sweet potato at the grocery store. I kinda forgot about it. Then when I decided to eat it, it had shoots all over it. I was ready to pitch it but then I felt guilty and cruel because it had so many shoots. You can tell it was so determined to live so I planted it. :)

Great job, thanks for including all the info i needed in a concise way, and not burying the 4 important things in an hour long video of fodder and chat, keep growing! Keep teaching! You’re good at it!

My grandpa gave me a cardboard box of sweet potatoes from his garden (to eat) but I left them in on top of my rain barrel for several weeks and forgot about them. When I discovered them I figured they wouldn't be any good but to my surprise, they had all grown some tubers. I had 8 of them so I made 8 mounds from my compost pile in a large circle about 20 feet in diameter. In a few DAYS, all of them had tons of leaves growing. They have been in the ground now a month and are growing out of control. The vines have run across the ground to the neighboring mound and have sort of connected. It looks really cool. I had no clue how to grow them but it seems like I did exactly the right thing.

I would like to thank Wendi Phan for this great concise, quick moving video that explains HOW to cultivate sweet potato, sharing several techniques, as well as her clever suggestion that sweet potato can make an attractive ground cover with attractive flowers.

I am in southern california zone 10b. In my zone, they grow year round. The vines never turn yellow to indicate that it's ready to be harvested, instead I have to keep track of when I planted which one when, so I know when to harvest. Just before harvesting, I started new plants from vine cuttings and still get the tubers. I also found that the vines that just get harvested can be replanted and will produce some more tubers.

Thank you!!! This worked like a charm!!! 😁👌 Waaay more effective than the toothpick and water method!

This is the fifth video I’ve watched on growing sweet potato slips - going with this one. Thanks!

Thank you. I’ve grown sweet potatoes from slips before, but never from the actual potato. Lot of people here in Hawaii grown them.

i was given a clipping from a sweet potato vine a couple years back. I basically stuck the cut end in the ground and walked away. I watered the bed a few times but not with any sort of regularity. A few months later, lo and behold, sweet potatoes. Not many but a few.

Thanks so much for your great video - and all the printed info too! Wish I had known about your video before I tried to grow slips on my own. You seem truly happy and it is a joy to see your happy face.

What's the concern with using animal manure which could have been fed GM product? I would have thought that at the nutrient (element and molecular) level it wouldn't be a problem to the plant? Like potassium and nitrogen are still potassium and nitrogen regardless of how the animal was fed (or if it was sick, etc). Thanks in advance. You video was otherwise very helpful.

I am glad to have found your channel. We have sweet potato videos that show how to make slips and then one on planting the slips to grow potatoes. You have such a great knowledge of how to grow sweet potatoes. Thanks for sharing.

im glad that i saw this bc i was about to bury the entire potato haha

Hope everyone is enjoying the rest of Memorial Day Weekend. Hope you enjoy my latest video. :)

The e best harvest I've had is when I laid down clear plastic covering to heat the soil up. I previously used black covering. It's obvious why clear is better.

You mentioned that you cannot grow sweet potatoes from vine cuttings, but I proved that you can. After I harvested my first container crop, I decided to save some of the cuttings. I put them in water and they rooted. When the roots were about 6 inches in length, I planted them, and I now have my second crop of container grown sweet potatoes ready for harvest in about two weeks. I dug around in the soil yesterday and there are sweet potatoes in there. This was an experiment to see if I could use the vine cuttings, and it worked.

Remove all the leaves except for the tiny leaves at the very tip. Plant the cutting by covering the whole length with soil, only the leaves of the tip should stick out of the ground. The cuttings will root at every leave node. Not just the leave nodes under the ground will root. A sweet potato also grows roots from every leave node that develops as your cutting grows. If you can't get hold of cuttings you can start growing sweet potatoes by planting the tubers. You can use any shop bought sweet potatoes. Place them on the ground, cover them with soil, and keep them moist. The tubers will develop shoots, called slips. Slips can be snipped or pulled off and planted out when they are about 15 cm in size. The original root will continue to produce more slips. Growing Sweet Potatoes In Water It's a popular project in school classes: growing sweet potato vines in a glass of water. You can do that by putting a tuber into water, pointy end down, with the top third above the water. Slips will grow from the eyes of the tuber. You can plant those shoots out just like the slips grown in soil. Some people root the slips in water as well. It's nice to watch for children, but it has no benefit whatsoever. Rooting any plant in a glass of water does not make sense, other than for demonstration and teaching purposes. Planting Sweet Potatoes The best soil for sweet potatoes is sandy, but they can grow in all soils. If you have heavy soil plant sweet potatoes on mounds or ridges. Raising the beds improves the drainage (very important) and gives the tubers a nice deep soil to develop in. (Otherwise you may end up with small, bent and forked sweet potatoes.) The soil should have a good supply of nutrients, for example from digging in mature compost. Do not use fresh manures or any fertilizers high in nitrogen (like pelleted chicken manure). You'd just end up with lots of leaves and no tubers. Growing Sweet Potatoes Growing sweet potatoes requires some space, so plant them where they can spread. Space your cuttings or slips about a foot apart in a row, and leave three to four feet between rows. (If you plant in rows, that is...) Mulch thickly between plants and even between the beds to intially keep the weeds down. Once the sweet potatoes grow they will choke all weeds down themselves. For planting time the general recommendation is to plant a patch in spring. (May in the northern hemisphere, November in the southern). In a cool climate you may indeed have to get by with a single planting. Sweet potatoes do need four to six months of reasonably warm weather to mature. But in the tropics one big spring planting does not make sense, unless you are a commercial grower. Sweet potatoes don't keep well after harvest, so the best way is to plant a few cuttings every week or two. Just one row of one metre length, with three cuttings. They will take about 16 to 18 weeks to mature in warm weather, longer in cooler weather. That way you can grow sweet potatoes all year round, and you don't find yourself with a big pile of them all at once. Growing sweet potatoes the lazy way If you have enough room you can also plant a permanent sweet potato patch. I did. When I started growing sweet potatoes I didn't plant in rows. I have plenty of space, so I planted some sweet potatoes as a ground cover under most of my fruit trees. They did extremely well, and now my whole orchard is covered in sweet potatoes. They don't need any care, and when I want some sweet potatoes I can usually find a few there. I just look for a thickened stem, or walk around feeling for a lump, and start digging. It's too easy. (Read more about growing sweet potatoes permaculture style here. Soon.) How much water? How much plant food? Although sweet potatoes are a very tropical vegetable they can get by with little water once established. However, the freshly planted cuttings need to be watered regularly. Make sure plants don't become waterlooged. If your soil isn't free draining it's safest to grow sweet potatoes on mounds. If you think the quality of your soil is not good enough fertilize your plants at planting time, at six weeks of age, and maybe once more at twelve weeks. Or whenever you remember to do it... Just make sure you use a balanced fertilizer, for example seaweed extract. A sprinkle of sulfate of potash also doesn't go astray. Compost that had lots of wood ash in it is even better. Avoid high nitrogen fertilizers. Root crops like potassium and phosphorus, not nitrogen. Harvesting sweet potatoes After four to six months, depending on the temperatures, your sweet potatoes will be ready. You will see that the original stem of your cutting or slip will have thickened, and when you carefully lift the plant with a fork you should find two or three sweet potatoes at the base. You can harvest sweet potato leaves and young shoots at any time, it does not affect the plant or tubers. Problems when growing sweet potatoes In the tropics sweet potatoes have one serious pest, and that's the sweet potato weevil. An adult weevil is a metallic blue and orange and about 6 mm long. It eats everything, stems, leaves and roots. The weevils lay their eggs in the roots, and the larvae tunnel through the roots and make a rotten mess of them. If you have problems with sweet potato weevils you can't grow a permanent sweet potato patch. Just use the other sweet potato growing method. Plant slips or cuttings, that way you don't transfer any weevils. Dig up the whole crop, don't leave any tubers in the ground, and start afresh with cuttings in a different bed. That way weevils will never be a problem again. Return to top Return from Growing Sweet Potatoes to The Tropical Permaculture Garden Home What's New? What Is Permaculture? Permaculture Design Permaculture Plants Permaculture Books Growing Fruits Growing Vegetables Growing Herbs/Spices Homemade Fertilizer [?] Subscribe To This Site XML RSS Add to My Yahoo! Add to My MSN Add to Newsgator Subscribe with Bloglines Have you heard of the neem tree? The tropical tree has many uses and benefits, both in the garden and in the home. Learn more about growing neem trees, using neem pesticide, making neem soap, neem shampoo and more... Discover Neem!

Terrific videos Wendi--you're an excellent teacher! I'm ready to plant some cuttings. Just one note==if you use organic manure you don't need to worry about the GMO feed concern-- :)

Best video I have seen on planting sweet potatoes by far. Thank you!

Man I wish I could pay someone to help me harvest a garden

Why did this confuse me, i need to watch another video

I´m a part of the morning glory family too ^_^

This is the best sweet potato video I have seen on the internet. Yes, they are part of the morning glory family. I love morning glory 's. I planted scarlet one's this spring and waiting for them to soon bloom so I can take pictures of them as I do every year. You do a beautiful job. Thank you for sharing.🥰🌺

Can you save a sweet potato to grow this spring (2018)? I have one now that I don't feel like eating so I thought about growing it, especially since I got it from an expensive produce box 🙄 haha.

Awesome! I’m going to plant my “slip” now!

thank you for sharing. always excited with your videos along with john kohler, jake mace (veganathlete).i put a whole sweet potato with little slips half buried onto the ground for my nieces. i want to introduce them to gardening. sweet potato had a history in japan which stave off famine; thus, saved unlimited lives. unfortunately, the irish didn't get same the opportunity. never though about chicken manure is link to gmo (i'll be stop using it)

Every year I start slips by laying a sweet potato half way in soil and slips just keep coming…. But every year I wonder why I do this. How does nature do it without someone pulling off and starting slips? Why don’t I just plant the whole potato and let the roots just do their thing on their own? Does anyone know the hands off way of sweet potatoes?

Do you know what happens, if you don't separate the slips? I've been sprouting a few potatoes via the water method and I'm thinking of keeping the results of the smallest one as houseplants.. so I don't really want them to develop tubers. I'm thinking of just potting up the whole potato and keeping it like that. Do you by chance know if that will work?

I know this makes me stupid and borderline racist but I was completely thrown off by your completely normal American accent. lol Sorry.

In Malaysia, we call sweet potato, "Ubi Manis".

I just watched your video and it was very interesting. I guess I did mine all wrong LOL. The part that I am a little confused on is when you removed the slips off the potato. So you take a potato and plant it and it gets all those little slips on it and then you remove all the slips and replant them? Am I understanding that right?

Thank you for your video! I buried a whole sweet potato that started growing slips but have been treating it like a "regular" potato for a few weeks until I saw your video (thank you!). I attempted to harvest the slips but it has taken root amazingly I'm the soil and I couldn't even find the potato. My question is now what? I am in no hurry for harvest but am unsure if I should thin them out or do I need to bury portions of the vines to get more potatoes? Help! They are growing great (over 10) but who knows what's going on under there? Thank you!

You seriously think the manure/shit of a chicken fed GMO grains would cause any problem? Lol at that

I started a whole sweet potato half submerged in water the way you described. After 2 weeks, lots of roots but no slips. Is that a bad sign or do I just need more patience?

Can you explain where I can find good soul or how you mix it? Love your videos I just subscribed♥️

Wendi, i would also not touch with bear hands soil with any type of poo(bat guano etc). Look up ascariasis and ascaris. It's the most common worm infection and the important thing is that the larvae of this one can actually be found in the soil.. I loved your video, this is exactly what i am doing right now. No more expensive farmer's market hauls for sweeet sweeet pota-toes!(vegan) Thank you! Have you found any taste differences with your growing methods?

Great info, thanks Wendi! I was going to go the water route but soil seems better having listened to you.

sweet potato is common vegetable in the philippines

actually you can grow new potatoes from cuttings. done it plenty.

Had to stop the video and say thank you. I never knew s.p. were in the morning glory family.

Is there any problem to eat the last-year-harvested sweet potato (1:20...) from which you cut the tip with sprouts? Likewise, with the sweet potatoes you had missed harvesting and dug up the succeeding year (3:00...) - any problem with eating them? I've been thinking my best storage strategy in zone 9a might be to harvest periodically, so glad you mentioned doing that. And I have a garden area in which I planted two beds of sweets last year, then didn't harvest at all what with one thing and another, so they've had two years of growth - and overrun almost the entire garden! I definitely would like to think I can just continue to leave them in the ground and harvest some at a time. And a curiosity question: I've bought Okinawan 'purple'-fleshed sweets from local Asian Market and found them to vary in the degree of purple. But the last ones I bought a week ago have turned out to be entirely cream-fleshed. I buy those for the anthocyanins (same nutrient that blueberries have) and am not too happy about that, though I'll certainly eat them as they taste fine. Have you run into that before? Do you know why? what happened?

0:43 You confuse people by saying plant because people think that the plant is what you eatbut you are trying to say that potatoes grow 10 plants off of one potato but sweet potatoes don't do that somehow you're saying take the slips off of the sweet potato first unlike the regular potato which you leave the slips on🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉❤

I'm from southeast asia that sweet potatoes are common plants here. We plants lot of varieties of sweet potatoes. I love purple sweet potatoes. This year plant sweet potatoes use box. Hope I can success...

Great video! I just started my gardening channel and recorded my how to grow sweet potato vid, but haven't posted it yet. I usually do the water method, but it was neat to see your success with the soil method. Love that you understand and know about the manure from cows being GMO. Great seeing other fellow gardeners caring about their soil health. Loved this!

So good. I really like your video. Thank you so much for sharing Merry christmas 🌹🌹🙏🙏

That was so quick, simple and to the point with no BullShiite. Thank you for making this video. I subscribed.

plant slips 3 or 4 nodes deep for better harvest in my experience.

Fantastic video and so informative!!

my sweet potato is growing, without soil, water-its just on a rack, sitting, without sunlight either! time to put it in the ground? how long does it take to grow, ripen? nice video!

Thanks you help a lot.. take care

Altho sweet potato and ordinary potatoes are in different families after seeing this video both start growing again in the same way. When i worked on a potato farm we just planted part of the potato that had started to grow a shoot. Sometimes getting 4 plants from one spud. It seems sweet potatoes are the same. Or did I miss something?

You’re so knowledgeable! Thank you!!

Hi Wendi! Your video is really helpfull. I live in Norway and I want to grow sweet potatoe. Its winter now. When do you think I should start the sweet potoato-growing-process? Should I start now, so it's ready to be planted out in my garden when the heat is comming?

Please what variety of purple sweet potatoes are those? I can't tell whether they are Molokai, Okinawan or Stokes variety. I want to try growing some as well.

Wendi, thanks for this video. I want to share something with you. You mentioned all the ingredients that you'd used to prepare your soil before planting the sweet potatoes. You included bat guano. Last year, I was diagnosed with lung cancer (never having smoked) and the doctor asked me if I'd been exposed to or in contact with several things like radon. Another on the list was bat droppings. I had been near some but hadn't touched it. The doctor said all I'd needed to have done was inhale it. You may want to look into this more. Be healthy!

oh I reeeeally LOVE your channel, yours is my favourite food growing channel and the first female I have come across doing this ;D you are so sweet , gentle and loving with your plants . I will be back and I am about to share this video on my Linked in account . Thank you wonderful lady ; )

are you saying u can cut pieces of a sweet potatoe and put in out and it will grow slips

Thank u WENDI! UR AWESOME.... AND pretty! Hope ur safe during this CRAZY time. Freedom... worrier!

Ken Pecota(head of the sweet potato breeding program at NCSU) and also the university of Georgia sweet potato production guide both say that its not recommended to pull up the sweet potato slips out of the ground but to use a sharp clean knife and cut them off 1" above the soil line being careful not to let the knife or the cut slip touch the soil . This is because most of the disease is soil borne .Yes these rootless cuttings will grow slower at first but it more than makes up for it that they have no disease .have you ever dug up a sweet potato plant only to find rotten sweet potatoes? If so consider Ken's advise .

I've had a sweet potato growing for a while and many roots have sprouted out the bottom - not near a slip. Are they connected to slips higher up on the potato? When removing the slip for the potato, will the root easily come with it? (as your video explains, just leave it in water if it doesn't). Thank you

The sweet potato leaves can be eaten too...

At 1:03 you said if you take a cutting from sweet potato vine and try to grow it won't produce sweet potatoes. That is news to me. I been growing sweet potatoes for many years. I always thought the vine will root in places along the ground where the dirt is on the vine and then there it will make more sweet potatoes. I don't really know thought because I trellis mine to grow the greens to eat and I keep trimmed so the harvest of the potatoes in the ground is usually nice size tubers but I always thought if I let the vine grow on the ground it would sprout more sweet potatoes from some vines rooting in the ground and making more tubers.

I purchased 4 different sweet potato slips varieties from ETSY. I'm in Virginia zone 7a. Here it's January 2023. The slips have lots of leaves and roots but since it's winter I have to keep them indoors. How do I do that and when should I transplant them outdoors after my last frost? Please advise!

I was just looking at the video to find out how to regrow my plants I've never grown sweet potatoes but I have subscribed and absolutely loved how you walked us through very easily and very swiftly thank you for putting your opinions out here they helped many of us

Hi, I live in Melbourne Australia, where the climate is not too cold during winter, we don't have snow. But summer can be very hot like these weeks (35°C and no rain for weeks). I submerged an organic sweet potato. It grows some roots, but no sprouts. Can I plant it in soil without the sprouts?

HI Thanks for your video.Once the potato is planted, how often do I have to water it.?Everyday ? I live in Israel, and it's already extremely warm in February. Spring time is already there. Usual Have a nice dayesther

Oddly, I have never had problems using cuttings.

my sweet potato plant flower possible to Growing potato

please be careful not to give out inacurate information.sweet patatoe grows from the cut vines as well.i have been doing it most of my life.

That explained everything I was curious about. Thank you so much.Want to try growing them as recent studies have shown they and other purple vegetables have been linked as contributing factors to good health and longevity. So.....one slip = one sweet potato?

Hi Good Morning from India!! I love your blogging because of everyday I am learning something from you regarding on cultivation. I learn how grow our own veggies in our front yard or backyard. On top off everyday I am learning American English from you. Stay blessed and stay safe. 💓💓💓💓🌷🌷🙏

Been growing sweet potatoes for 4 years and buying my slips. I've looked at other instructions but this was the best I've found! Great job! No more buying slips for me. Wife was tired of my water jars too. Will try dirt to grow next season.

Anyone know about gopher problems with sweet potatoes? (possibly dumb question as most things are gopher fodder, they even ravaged my horse radish which I was thinking would be too harsh for them)

Nice video. You’re worried about GMO products when bat guano is just as filthy. Bats also carry viruses & rabies. Happy healthy eating.😊

You said people plant the slips and 3 or 4 months later there arent going to be any sweet potatoes when you dig. You should rethink that you are wrong.

Thanks Wendy for your interesting and helpful upload. You know I tried the water method, planting 3 sweet potatoes, well 2 rotted and one did root but it has no slips! I wonder what I did wrong, on the other this morning I discovered a sprout on a sweet potatoe I have stored in a plastic bag,....so I'm I should plant this sweet potatoe so the sprout will easily grow? Or should I leave the sweet potatoe more time in the plastic bag, the sprout is very small, like a small, little pebble, a mere point. Thumbs up and thank you for sharing your successful way of planting these yummy sweet potatoes! :)

I'm planting the sweet potato leaves too. At first i planted them in water and when there are more roots, i planted the whole sweet potato into the soil. It started off okay but a few weeks later, i noticed that the new leaves came out yellow with dark green veins. I added vermicast to my soil but the new leaves coming out are still yellow... How can i fix it? :( thanks!

You can grow potatoes the exact same way. Just let the sprouts grow until the potato is wrinkled and almost dry, then pull off all of the sprouts, let them sit and dry for a few hours, and plant them in pots. Starting with a smaller pot and moving up to your final container helps prevent rot.

never thought its as easy as that. cant wait to try. thank you for sharing. god bless u.

Me encantaria excuchar sus comentariox en castellano, esñañol

Aloha from hawaii! Very informative video. Growing molokai sweet potato slips in 5 gallon buckets cause my garden bed is all full.

Hi I am a bit confused.. Once you have grown the slips, do you plant the actual sweet potato with the green plants (the roots) or do you only plan the green stuff haha Rookie here

I need your help. I’m in a very hot and humid area of North Carolina. My orange sweet potatoes are molding when I do either method, water or soil. I’ve been trying for months. What should I do?

Sorry this same info on how to grow sweet potato slips has been on RU-vid for 10+ yrs... there is no new or significant information on "growing" sweet potatoes. Please show the in-between especially if you are able to grow more than 1 potato per slip.

Happy holidays. Where could I go to buy Hayman seeds and slips? We’re in Northern Virginia, but anywhere local or online?

I go around on my bicycle looking for sweet potato leaves to harvest.I forgot that since they are leaves,there must also be tubers underneath which I can also harvest.Am I right?

Hi I was wondering if Asian yam leaves are edible like sweet potatoes leaves? Thank You! The stores say they're purple yams or Asian yams.

How long does it take to grow slips in soil? almanac.com says sow time for Houston is by the end of June. I only have 6 weeks! Is that enough time??? Thanks!

I planted the slips and 5 months later “Not even one sweet potato grew!” Why?? I planted them in a container and I garden in my balcony. West sun only no full son. Please advice

This is the very easy plants that I can planted on any kind of container . Yours grows healthy.

Nice video. Very informative. I’m new to your channel. Thank you for sharing.

Soy j Joaquim acá es difícil conseguir camote morado para mi es el mas delicioso hueytamalco Puebla mexico

I love purple sweet potato! I put two that I got from the store in the ground, and now I'm going to try the slip method. Never buying again lol

I recently found out about a really cool hack that would help for anybody who is starting to grow potatoes and root crops If you have a problem with the soil so that whenever you try to put a tuber directly in it and it just starts to rot or get eaten by bugs that are already in the soil then remember to not put the tuber in directly but you can ask a construction team near you for some sand or gravel then coat the potato in the sand nicely that will make an extra layer of protection for the potato against any disease ,bugs and rotting problems

These sweet potatoes are very healthy. They are commonly called "Okinawan longevity potatoes"...from the Island of Okinawa. The Okinawans prior to 1950, when industrialized food was introduced, used to live healthfully into their 90's and 100's, eating good quantities of these sweet potatoes. . In fact, there is a famous clinical study of their longevity. By the way, any of these sweet potatoes shipped from Hawaii are irradiated and I do not think they will grow slips.

I should have known you 3 years ago 🤠 but anyway good to see you today ! I'm in tx. Thank you for teaching.

Really really good. Just what I needed to see about growing sweet potatoes.

Can you plant in Fall or winter outdoors in California and if you can what do you plant the sprout of the sweet potatoes or something else? Thanks for your time.